WORLD SNOW ROUNDUP #243
Issued: 08 June 2022
By Patrick “Snowhunter” Thorne
European Roundup
North American Roundup
Asia Roundup
World Overview
The southern hemisphere’s ski season has got underway in Australia, Lesotho in South Africa and New Zealand. Lesotho’s Afriski and Whakapapa on Mt Ruapehu in New Zealand opened as scheduled but for Australia most of the country’s larger centres opened a week earlier than planned thanks to a dream start to winter with lots of snowfall and low temperatures for snowmaking as an added bonus. In fact, Australia’s Perisher was able to claim ‘first to open in the southern hemisphere’ by eventually opening seven-and-a-half days early for the season, at noon last Friday, because Whakapapa which was due to open a few hours before, delayed doing so due to bad weather.
With ski areas still open in Asia, Europe and North America in the northern hemisphere too, it means that skiing and snowboarding are currently possible on five continents, even though only a few dozen centres are operating worldwide! Six continents if we include indoor snow centres too! We’re back up to double figures in terms of the number of countries open with snowsports as well.
SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE INTRO
The southern hemisphere’s ski season is underway in Australia, New Zealand and Lesotho with South America looking good to start any day now, the first centres there are expected to open this coming weekend if not before. The good news for Australia and the Andes for the first week of June has been a lot of snowfall to start the season off right. In fact, both are looking like they’re going to have one of their best season starts in recent years and that has already happened, a week early, in Australia. Here they’re reporting the best start to the season for over 20 years and one of the two biggest snowfalls ever. In New Zealand, there’s not yet quite so much fresh snowfall to report but the forecast for later this week, as the season proper gets started there, is looking good too.
AUSTRALIA REPORT
Australia’s 2022 ski season is underway with most of the country’s leading ski centres opting to open a week early, last weekend, following big pre-season snowfalls last week that totalled 30-60cm (1-2 feet). The snow kept falling through to Thursday, with gale-force winds bringing blizzard conditions at times for the first day of winter, before skies cleared with perfect timing ahead of the weekend. Temperatures, which dipped as low as -8C allowing snowmaking arsenals to work at full strength too, stayed cold. After a flurry of announcements in the middle of last week as the storm lived up to and in some cases exceeded expectations, the Aussie centres that opened a week early were Mt Hotham (31/45cm / 12/18″), Falls Creek (24/45cm / 10/18″) and Mt Buller (35/45cm / 14/18″) in Victoria and the country’s largest resort, Perisher (35/45cm / 14/18″), in New South Wales. The small snow area at Corin Forest, closest to Canberra in Australia’s Capital area was also open.
Perisher was first out the gates and by default first in the southern hemisphere to open at noon on Friday last week, the other centres opening on Saturday, all with limited terrain and early-season conditions.
The skies cleared for the weekend, at least in terms of snow clouds, giving decent if overcast conditions, but the second round of snowfall began for many areas on Sunday evening with flakes even fatter than before falling and leading resorts like Hotham to post further accumulations in the past few days, totalling as much as 50cm in 24 hours and taking 7-day totals past the metre (40”) mark for several resorts.
The resorts that are sticking to Australia’s traditional opening weekend, when a national holiday for the Queen’s Birthday makes it a long weekend (this year from June 11-13), include Thredbo and Charlotte Pass in New South Wales and Mt Baw Baw and Dinner Plain in Victoria.
The open centres have had limited terrain available initially as is normal for the early season. In fact, most had more terrain open than usual as sometimes the season starts with limited machine-made only thin cover. At Mt Buller, it was the Bourke St Express, Bourke St Carpet, and ABOM Express on Saturday. But much more terrain is expected to be open this coming weekend thanks to all the snow as the official season start date is reached.
The main hope for Australia this season though, with ski areas hit by more pandemic lockdowns than any other country over the past two seasons, is for a fairly normal winter for the first time since 2019. So far ski areas are operating largely without restrictions other than masks still being required at some resorts in enclosed areas.
AUSTRALIA FORECAST
The good news is that last week’s big pre-season snowfall that started the season off a week early and so well is set to be followed by a second big snowstorm over the remainder of this week, with temperatures still cold for snowmaking as well. That’s setting up the country for a great Queen’s Birthday holiday long weekend, the traditional season start weekend in Australia, when the rest of the country’s centres will open and those already open will have much more terrain available.
NEW ZEALAND REPORT
Whakapapa (3/43cm / 1/17”) was due to be the first ski area to open for the 2022 season in the southern hemisphere, last Friday morning, 3rd June. However, poor weather prevented that but it did eventually open later in the weekend. It’s not really a full ski area opening though, the main ski slopes of Whakapapa on Mt Ruapehu on the country’s North Island won’t open until early July. What did open was the centre’s ‘Happy Valley’ area which predominantly offers ‘snow fun’ and a bit of beginner terrain thanks to its all-weather snowmaking system. Ruapehu remains under ‘eruption watch’ as an active volcano currently showing signs of seismic activity, but it’s currently considered safe to ski there and the centre’s operators are of course hoping that remains the case through the ski season, which tends to continue later into October (and some years “Snow-vember”), more than any other southern hemisphere resort. However, the first full area openings for those above beginner level are due this coming weekend with Mt Hutt scheduled to open this coming Friday 10th June. However, the resort did post a warning on Monday that the date might slide if conditions don’t improve fast enough, describing the opening day as currently “a moving target”. As yet New Zealand has seen above-average temperatures and rather warmer weather than Australia and the snow lying is mostly machine-made but there are positive signs of something heading in from the Antarctic that could be perfectly timed for next weekend.
NEW ZEALAND FORECAST
The first proper winter blast of 2022 is expected to hit New Zealand just as the ski season gets underway on the South Island next weekend. Potential snowfall down to sea level is possible from around Saturday. The forecast is not yet firm but an Antarctic southerly does have the potential to turn things more wintery than they have been recently by Friday or Saturday.
ARGENTINA REPORT
Pre-season conditions are looking good in Argentina after more heavy snowfalls to start June, following on from snowy spells right through springtime. Among the resorts lining up to open the weekend after next is big player Las Lenas which has missed two full seasons due to the pandemic and last winter a lack of snow cover when it had hoped to open. This winter, so far, is looking much better on both counts.
ARGENTINA FORECAST
It’s staying snowy over the next few days with the possibility of several feet more snowfall possible in the next 48 hours or so for some Argentinian ski slopes. A sunny spell is forecast for most for the final days of this week before a return of now clouds at the start of next. Temperatures staying at or below freezing up high, +5 to +10C in valleys.
CHILE REPORT
There’s been heavy snowfall in Chile ahead of the start of the 2022 season, expected this coming weekend or the weekend after for many areas. Portillo posted on Saturday that it has measured 21” (55cm) of new snow so far and the storm was still ongoing at that point. In the end, it said the total had passed 90cm (three feet). It was a similar story on snow slopes across the country. Valle Nevado said it had had 55cm to set up a good early-season base. Coming after low temperatures for snowmaking it means we should be looking at a good opening for Chile’s winter 2022, the first when international skiers are welcome to visit again for the first time since 2019.
CHILE FORECAST
It’s a mostly sunny forecast for much of Chile for the week ahead after the recent snow dumps. Temperatures shouldn’t get too high above freezing. However, all the snow should hang around. Indeed, subzero overnight lows should allow for more snowmaking as well to help build-up to pre-season bases.
AFRICA REPORT
Lesotho’s Afriski (20/50cm / 8/20″) was the second ski area in the southern hemisphere to open for its 2022 season, just a few hours after the early-opening Perisher in Australia. After the snowstorms nearly a fortnight ago there were clear skies but the centre’s main slope and nursery areas are in good shape thanks to low overnight temperatures and a successful snowmaking effort. It has remained cold and clear. South Africa’s only ski area, Tiffindell, has hinted it will stay closed for a third successive season, but a social media post indicates it may reopen in 2023. The centre has been unresponsive to communications for several years after initially stating it would re-open when pandemic restrictions allowed but in a response to a recent enquiry posted online someone appearing to represent the centre said they may reopen next year, but not this.
AFRICA FORECAST
The week ahead looks to be the usual sunny skies and with the usual fluctuations between around +8C at the height of the afternoon and -6C in the middle of the night, which should continue to allow for overnight snowmaking to replenish any daytime thaw.
EUROPE INTRO
There are currently nine centres open in five countries for summer snowsports in Europe. We’ve lost another of the centres that had still been open for their 21-22 seasons in the Alps and another that was due to start its summer ski season this coming weekend. Val d’Isere, has announced it won’t be opening for snowsports this summer due to poor conditions, so we will stay down to five from the six we had a week ago. Further north in Scandinavia the third and final Norwegian summer ski destination, the Stryn Glacier, has opened though on June 1st. So we remain on a European total of eight areas open.
ALPS REPORT
The main change to what’s open in the Alps for the start of June is that Crans Montana has now ended its 2021-22 run after a six-month ski season but the second of the French summer ski areas, Val d’Isère, was due to begin a five-week glacier opening from this coming Saturday 11th, with Tignes set to follow a week later. But Val d’Isere has now cancelled its 2022 summer ski season due to poor conditions. So, with Hintertux and the Kitzsteinhorn still open in Austria, Passo Stelvio in Italy and Zermatt in Switzerland we are down to five areas open in June.
ALPS FORECAST
There’s quite a lot of precipitation in the forecast as storms move through the rest of this week. Temperatures up on glaciers should stay at or a degree or two below freezing and snow is possible most days through to the weekend. Strong winds and low clouds may hit openings though. Things look clearer at the weekend and warmer in the valleys, where we may see the thermometer back up to +20C.
SCANDINAVIA REPORT
All of Norway’s glacier ski areas are now open with Stryn (200/300cm / 80/120”) the latest to open, on June 1st. It joins Folgefonn or “Fonna” (400/760cm / 160/304”), which has the deepest base in the world at present and Scandinavia, Galdhøpiggen (280/320cm / 112/128″). The past week has not really seen ideal weather conditions with lower elevation slopes seeing double-digit positive temperatures and rain showers. But, so far, bases seem to be holding up and there have been some long sunny spells.
SCANDINAVIA FORECAST
There’s more fairly warm weather and rain showers forecast for the latter half of this week. But the weekend is looking colder and that rain maybe is falling as snow by then.
NORTH AMERICA INTRO
There was some excitement in western North America as snowfall was reported up high on the first of June (or the first day of summer), continuing the trend which saw way more snowfall in spring, which we’re still in by the astronomical measure of the seasons, than there was last winter. Arapahoe Basin Ski Area (8/54″ / 20/140cm) reported another 10 inches (25cm) of snowfall to start the new month, the latest accumulation in several weeks of snowfall.
Copper Mountain has re-opened a terrain park for summer snow use this week. But it’s not open for anyone, just for those staying at their Woodward facility for summer snowsports camps
Snow depths in the Pacific Northwest region are reported to be above average for the start of summertime thanks to all the late spring snowfall. Crystal Mountain (21/78″ / 52/196cm), in Washington State, plans to open for one more weekend (from this Friday to Sunday) unless they opt to extend the season again. The wintery weather is reported to be catching out early season hikers and campers with several reported to be ill-equipped for the snow. Rangers in the area are warning people not to expect snow-free hiking trails until much later in the summer this year.
Timberline (0/157″ / 0/393cm), in Oregon, was another reporting fresh snowfall. Its Palmer permanent snowfield is now open once more and is due to stay open through to the start of September, snow permitting. Fortunately, the summer is off to a good start there with the deep snow lying and fresh snowfall.
The Beartooth Basin summer ski area on the Montana/Wyoming border has opted not to open at all this winter, however. So it’s a bit ironic that the Highway that serves it has been closed with up to six feet of snowfall reported on it.
But despite the fresh snowfall, it was finally the end of a long 21-22 season at several areas open since last October or early November. Among them were Arapahoe Basin and the last centre still open in California, Mammoth Mountain (0/24″ / 0/60cm), which has dropped from a half to about a third of its terrain open for closing weekend.
Over in the east, Killington (0/202 / 0/50cm) celebrated its first June skiing for 25 years at the weekend with its Superstar trail open and lift-accessed for the first time since 1997, completing a seven-month season at the East Coast’s largest ski area.
North of the border there’s nowhere open in Canada at present but Whistler is due to open its Blackcomb Glacier for skiing and boarding for the first time since 2019 at the weekend. The resort has said that only those enrolled for summer camps will be allowed to use the lifts and terrain though, similar to Copper.
NORTH AMERICA FORECAST
Things are looking more settled and a little warmer in the Pacific Northwest over the coming week, although still getting down around freezing overnight on high slopes. Dry for the next few days but with rain showers (possibly snow at times up high) at times with highs in the 50s or low 60s Fahrenheit in valleys.
JAPAN INTRO
The base at Japan’s Gassan (30/320cm / 12/128″) has dropped considerably over the last week and is now at about a third of what it was at the opening two months ago. But there’s only about a month more of the season left. So, hopefully, what’s left will be enough to keep at least higher terrain open. Some of the fast losses have been due to persistent rain more than warm temperatures, as temperatures have been in the +2 to +8C range, but the rain is very frequent.
JAPAN FORECAST
There’s more rain on the way for the remainder of this week, but this should become increasingly showery with sunny spells. However, temperatures are set to rise a few degrees with the clearer skies.
